I had to cringe a bit at this Echo headline on a link to a Toledo Blade story Monday: Homeowners are urged to have plan for toxins’ escape

The headline is taken directly from what the Blade copy editors wrote. It’s also wrong. The first sentence of the story:

“Countless shipments of toxic chemicals travel the highways and railways of metropolitan Toledo every day, but these chemicals often are ingredients in products that support Americans’ standard of living and conveniences, …”

That’s fine, but the headline refers to toxins, not toxic chemicals. And toxins are poisonous substances produced by living cells or organisms. It’s a mix-up so common that here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism we even cite it in a list of words often used incorrectly on the environment beat.

I guess there could be an alternative explanation, but I believe it more likely that this is a language snafu than that there are countless shipments of  bee, jellyfish or rattlesnake venom daily traveling the nation’s highways and railways.

Echo Editor David Poulson is the associate director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism